Without any authority from Congress or the U.S. Constitution, the Obama administration announced this week that, in coordination with other Western governments and Arab dictatorships, U.S. taxpayers will provide yet another $60 million in direct aid to the Syrian “rebels” — a broad coalition of foreign Islamists, mercenaries, Muslim terrorists including al-Qaeda, and other forces. Since the war broke out, the president has already spent close to half-a-billion taxpayer dollars propping up the “revolutionaries,” who have strong support from the highest ranks of the global establishment. Tens of thousands have already died in the conflict.
According to media reports citing Western officials, the latest round of assistance for the rebels will be channeled through a variety of establishment front groups including the so-called “Supreme Military Council.” The Obama administration will also be sending “technical advisers” to support the revolutionaries, who, like Syrian despot Bashir al-Assad, are accused of mass murder, war crimes, torture, massacres of civilians, and more. Meanwhile, the president has already put American troops on Syria’s northern border in Turkey and along the southern border in Jordan — all without asking Congress.
The most recent decisions to increase overt aid to the dubious opposition forces were supposedly made at a meeting of foreign ministers held in Rome, where a protester shouted at the officials to “stop supporting terrorists.” Apparently, however, as the powerful, global-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations explained recently, the “rebels” need al-Qaeda jihadists to successfully overthrow the Assad regime. Officials claim, however, that, unlike Libya — where the Obama administration openly backed al-Qaeda-linked forces — the latest round of taxpayer funding for the “revolution” will be screened to keep it out of the hands of certain terrorist groups.
“We need to stand on the side of those who want to see a free Syria,” claimed new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. “The stakes are really high and we can’t risk letting this country in the heart of the Mideast being destroyed by vicious autocrats.” Apparently without a trace of irony in his voice, Kerry added: “No nation, no people should live in fear of their so-called leaders.”
The controversial secretary of state also noted that the Obama administration and its “partners” — mostly European governments and vicious Arab dictatorships famous for human rights violations — have called on Assad to step down for well over a year. “President Assad is out of time and must be out of power,” Kerry told reporters, echoing previous demands by the administration.
The Syrian despot, backed by authorities in Iran and Russia, refused. According to Assad and a wide array of independent sources, the entire narrative about a popular uprising being quashed by a mad dictator is mostly fantasy. Instead, as official documents released by WikiLeaks revealed, the U.S. government has been showering millions of taxpayer dollars on opposition forces in Syria since long before the war broke out. Then, armed forces backed by foreign powers began killing Syrian police and conducting terror attacks, forcing the admittedly ruthless dictator to respond.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration and a motley assortment of allies — including some of the most repressive Islamist regimes on earth — have been pouring arms and funds into the so-called “revolution.” Even the New York Times was forced to admit, however, that the majority of weapons being provided by Western and Sunni Arab powers were being funneled to violent jihadists, who hope to overthrow the secular Assad regime and replace it with an Islamic theocracy before moving on to other targets.
Christians and other religious minorities have suffered the most throughout the raging conflict, partly because they have refused to join the establishment-backed revolution, and also simply for being “infidels.” As The New American has documented extensively, U.S. foreign policy has resulted in the mass slaughter of Christian communities from Iraq and Afghanistan to Egypt and now Syria. The bloodshed is expected to intensify — especially if the Christian-friendly secular regime ends up collapsing.
For Kerry and European foreign ministers, however, those issues seem to be of little concern — the primary aim, as they themselves openly admit, is to crush the Syrian government, which, like now-dead Libyan tyrant Moammar Gadhafi, was a former U.S. ally in the terror war. “We’re doing this but other countries are doing other things,” Kerry explained at the summit in Rome, which was attended by the establishment-approved “leader” of the so-called Syrian opposition. “I am confident the totality of this effort is going to have an impact on the ability of the Syrian opposition to accomplish its goals.”
Barbaric Sunni Arab despots and European officials seem to be equally passionate about supporting the brutal rebels in Syria. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, for example, also demanded more taxpayer-funded support for the establishment-backed opposition after meeting Kerry in Paris on Wednesday. “If we want to have a new regime, we have to encourage the opposition,” Fabius explained, openly admitting that regime change was the real goal. “We have to help the situation to move.” Ironically, while the Socialist French government helps wage jihad in Syria, it recently invaded Mali under the guise of fighting Islamic extremism.
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, meanwhile, hosted the pro-Syrian regime change meeting in Rome and also demanded that more money be extracted from already-struggling taxpayers to support the bloody “revolution” in Syria. “We must go above and beyond the efforts we are making now,” he said. In a statement released early Thursday, Terzi added that Western powers “need to change the balance of power on the ground” and that anti-Assad governments would “coordinate their efforts closely so as to best empower the Syrian people and support the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army in its efforts.”
Top officials in the United Kingdom echoed those sentiments. U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, for example, said the so-called “Friends of Syria” alliance supporting rebel forces was determined to “ramp up” its controversial support for the brutal war and the rebels determined to seize power. “We are entering a new phase in the response of western and Arab nations to the crisis in Syria,” he was quoted as saying by the increasingly discredited state-run BBC.
While officials insist that the “aid” will consist of “non-lethal” supplies — armored vehicles, communications equipment, night-vision goggles, and more — virtually everyone knows by now that the Obama administration has been deeply involved in arming the rebels and recruiting foreign jihadists for the fight. Indeed, according to growing mountains of evidence, the U.S. government compound in Benghazi that came under attack was serving as a key hub for gun-running to the jihadists in Syria and recruitment of more Islamist fighters. Arab regimes may be providing the actual weapons, but Western powers are intimately involved in arming, training, and supporting the so-called “revolution.”
In an unusually honest statement from the establishment press, ABC News interviewed a jailed Syrian “rebel” who admitted that he had previously been killing American troops in Iraq. “They were occupying my country,” the prisoner told ABC about the reason for attacking U.S. forces. Why the Obama administration would be supporting a “revolution” being fought by self-styled al-Qaeda terrorists who openly despise the West and have been killing American troops remains unclear.
Experts and analysts say the regime-change operation being waged by Obama and the global establishment — using mostly jihadists seeking a Sharia dictatorship as proxies to do the fighting on the ground — is actually just a stepping stone on the road to Tehran. At this point, though, Assad’s regime seems to be holding up against the overwhelming force being brought to bear against his regime. Regardless of who ends up “winning,” however — Islamist extremists intent on massacring Christians, puppet rulers serving the Western establishment, or even Assad — the real price is being paid by the estimated 70,000 mostly innocent victims killed in the conflict so far.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: AP Images
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